Show's over for Niels Harrit, Steven Jones and the rest of the conspiracy crew

Before reading this article, you will most likely want to catch up on the previous posts on the topic of 9/11 conspiracy theories, nanothermite and Niels Harrit:

Angry Arabs Attacked Americans and Annihilated Assests

Everything you never wanted to know about thermite and didn't care to ask

and of course

Mere mortal Niels Harrit is no match for supergenius George W. Bush or even RONMOSSAD

I hope you'll excuse my sarcastic titles for the links (in actually they're quite serious posts that I spent a lot of time on) but I'm frankly sick and tired of this topic and the lunatics it keeps bringing to the site. However, one of my readers, Steve S has taken the time to translate an article in Danish (which I don't speak or read) that should put an end to this discussion once and for all. I had linked to this article (in Danish) during a previous exchange in the comments section of the third article and felt it would be wise to post the English translation for usage in the United States if any of my other readers get into debates over this. So thanks to Steve S for this RONMOSSAD blog near-exclusive:


TRANSLATION OF Chefredaktør skrider efter kontroversiel artikel om 9/11 FROM Videnskab.dk

Unofficial, by Steve S.

Editor in chief resigns after controversial article on 9/11

28 April 2009

From videnskab.dk ( Danish science news service)

An article on explosives in the World Trace Center was published in a scientific journal without the editor in chief knowing about it. Now she is resigning, she tells Videnskab.dk ([science.denmark])

By Thomas Hoffman (th@videnskab.dk).

It created a great attention, surprise and suspicion when the Open Chemical Physics Journal in April published a scientific article on remains of nanothermite which were found in great amounts in the dust from the WTC.

One those most surprised is apparently the editor in chief of the journal. Professor Marie-Paule Pileni first heard about he article when videnskab.dk wrote to her to ask for her professional assessment of the article’s content. The e-mail got her to immediately close the door to the journal.

“I resign as the editor in chief”, was the abrupt answer in an email to videnskab.dk

PRINTED WITHOUT PERMISSION

A telephone call reveals that editor in chief Marie-Paule Pileni had never been informed that the article was going to be published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, which is published by the journal giant Bentham Science Publishers.

“They have printed the article without my permission, so when you wrote to me, I did not know that the article had appeared. I cannot accept this, and therefore I have written to Bentham that I resign from all activities with them”, explains Marie Paule Pileni, who is professor with a specialty in nanomaterials at the renowned Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in France.

She feels not only stabbed in the back, but is puzzled that the article on dust analysis following the terror attack on the U.S. on 11 September 2001 could at all have found its way to the Open Chemical Physics Journal.

“I cannot accept that this topic is published in my journal. The article has nothing to do with physical chemistry or chemical physics, and I could well believe that there is a political viewpoint behind its publication. If anyone had asked me, I would say that the article should never have been published in this journal. Period.” Concludes the former editor in chief.

FAILING GRADES TO THE JOURNAL

The editor-in-chief’s dramatic departure gives critics additional reason to doubt the article’s conclusions, but Marie-Paule Pileni points out that because the topic lies outside her field of expertise, she cannot judge whether the article in itself is good or bad.

Nevertheless, the publication gets her to give the Open Chemical Physics Journal failing grades.

“I was in fact in doubt about them before, because I had on several occasions asked about information about the journal without having heard from them. It does not appear on the list of international journals, and that is a bad sign. Now I can see that it is because it is a bad journal”, says Marie-Paule Pileni and continues:

“There are no references to the Open Chemical Physics Journal in other articles. I have two colleagues who contributed to publishing an article which was not cited anyplace either. If no one reads it, it is a bad journal, and there is not use for it”, is the harsh verdict.

The professor informs us that a few years ago she was invited to be editor in chief of a journal which would open new possibilities for new researchers and because she supports the idea of open access journals where the articles are accessible to everyone, she said, “Yes” thank you.

“It is important to allow people to try and gain success, but one should not be allowed to do everything, and all this is certainly a bunch of nonsense. I try to be a serious researcher, and I will not have my name connected with this kind of thing,” concludes Marie-Paule Pileni.

DOES NOT CHANGE THE INVESTIGATION

The editor-in-chief’s decision is viewed as regrettable by the Danish chemist Niels Harrit, who is one of the authors to the controversial article on nanothermite in the dust from the WTC.

“It surprises me, of course, and it is regrettable, if it discredits our work. But her departure doesn’t change our conclusions, for it is a purely personnel related thing she his angry about. I still believe that we have carried out chemical physics, and if there is something wrong with our study, she is welcome to criticize us for it,” says Niels Harrit, Associate Professor at the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen.

It is Niels Harrit’s coauthor Steven Jones who was in charge of contact to Bentham, and therefore the Danish researcher is presently not aware which responsible assistant editor the group has been communicating with.

However, he does know the names of the two researchers –so-called referees—who have reviewed he article, but he will not give their names because they ‘are in principle anonymous’.

DANE WITHDREW FROM THE JOURNAL

Niels Harrit’s superior at the University of Copenhagen, Nils O. Andersen has himself participated in the pool of researchers who could be selected as editor, on an article which should be published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal. He has recently chosen to resign from the journals Editorial Advisory Board.

He informs videnskab.dk that the decision has nothing to do with Niels Harrit’s article, and that he otherwise did not achieve having any experiences with the journals, so that he cannot shed further light on how the journal operates.

“Open access is an exciting development, and as a principle the idea should be tried out for there is no reason for the commercial publishers to earn money from our work. But professionally, the journal lay at the margin of my expertise, and as I had said No to be editor of two articles, I decided that I would not use my time on anything else.”, explains Nils O. Andersen, dean of the faculty of Natural Sciences and editor of the European Physical Journal D.

It has not yet been possible to get any comment from Bentham Science Publishers.

I say "near-exclusive" because this was also previously posted on the excellent site Screw Loose Change - a vital resource for 9/11 debunking. Thank you to Steve S for taking the time to do this. I am looking forward to reading any further work you put into this (or any) topic.

But wait you say, how does the editor resigning from the paper impact the scientific process that went into this? Well, it doesn't. All it does is prove that the authors were dishonest in their approach to publishing the article and that according to the former editor of the journal:

"The article has nothing to do with physical chemistry or chemical physics, and I could well believe that there is a political viewpoint behind its publication. If anyone had asked me, I would say that the article should never have been published in this journal. Period."

Still her departure doesn't actually prove that the science behind the study was faulty. However, this breakdown by Enrico Manieri asserts that the most likely explanation for the "chips" that Harrit and company found is not a top-secret, government-funded tool of destruction at all. Rather, it is much more likely to be a significantly less exciting substance known as...



paint.

From the linked article:

In practice, the red layer of the wafers identified by the researchers contains exactly the same elements that we now know were present in the corrosion-resistant coating used during the construction of the World Trade Center, including the organic base constituted by linseed oil and alkyd resin.

Paint.

All this...over paint. And not just any paint...exactly the same type of fireproofing paint that would have been used by Turner Construction Company in the 1990's. In fact it is this same work order for "re-fireproofing" that is frequently cited as the basis for their conspiracy by the true believers! According to them this was be the exact opportunity to spray on the destructive nanothermite material that they claim would eventually knock down the World Trade Center.

So can we PLEASE move on from this topic now? There is just way too much else going on this week to be dealing with this stuff.

A final word on Niels Harrit, nanothermite, 9/11 "truth" and basic common sense

Please note the previous two entries before reading this item:

Who brought down the Twin Towers? A bunch of crazy Arabs, that's who.

Controlled demolitions, thermite and YOU.

Back yet? Ok, let's continue.

So - I felt the need (after another brave Anonymous "truther" kept me up until 3 am reading a psuedo-scientific paper) to put a final stamp on this topic before moving on. Last night, I was forced to actually delve into Niels Harrit's magical mystery tour and actually address the "facts" that were presented within it once and for all. It unfortunately turns out that despite the hopes of the conspiracy people that the more I "search for the truth" the more I will turn to their side...the more I read about this the LESS convinced I am that there is any merit whatsoever to this study.

Here's the abstract from the report if you don't feel like downloading/reading the entire thing (which I could hardly blame you for):

We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approximately 100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms occurring at approximately 430 °C, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these peculiar red/gray chips. The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.

It's hard for me...or anyone with a modicum of common sense to take this report seriously when the items they based this report on were given to them by residents of Lower Manhattan almost SIX YEARS after the Towers fell. These samples were not kept in sterile environments by any stretch of the imagination and were handled by ordinary, non-scientist New Yorkers.

Referring to these samples, the report itself states the following:

The resulting spectrum, shown in Fig. (14), produced the expected peaks for Fe, Si, Al, O, and C. Other peaks included calcium, sul-fur, zinc, chromium and potassium. The occurrence of these elements could be attributed to surface contamination due to the fact that the analysis was performed on the as-collected surface of the red layer. The large Ca and S peaks may be due to contamination with gypsum from the pulverized wall-
board material in the buildings.

So by their own admission the scientists are saying that in SIX YEARS that the samples, which were hanging out in lay peoples' homes they MAY have been contaminated. Wow, really?

The paper also never actually says that material in question is nanothermite or even regular thermite...rather that...

These observations reminded us of nano-thermite fabricated at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere

So it REMINDED them of a substance that no one aside for 9/11 conspiracy people apparently knows anything about. Can they conclusively say exactly what it is? Well...

We would like to make detailed comparisons of the red chips with known super-thermite composites, along with comparisons of the products following ignition, but there are many forms of this high-tech thermite, and this comparison must wait for a future study.

...not really. You see they can't really get their hands on this nano stuff because we're not sure it really exists. Ok. And further...

All these data suggest that the thermitic material found in the WTC dust is a form of nano-thermite

How incredibly conclusive! I have some suggestions of my own. Well at least they're not jumping to any conclusions right?

We make no at-tempt to specify the particular form of nano-thermite present until more is learned about the red material and especially about the nature of the organic material it contains.

Why bother making an attempt to actually identify this substance, right?

Well that's ok, at least we know for sure it's not paint chips right? Well of course not! Because...

we have shown that the red material contains both elemental aluminum and iron oxide

Oh. I see. There's iron oxide (rust) and aluminum in this mixture. There's no WAY that rust or aluminum could possibly have gotten into the Twin Towers. Except of course that the Twin Towers had tons upon tons of aluminum and every building in history that had iron it also had oxidized iron (rust) in it.

How totally convincing. It's stunning even! How could anyone ignore this incredibly conclusive evidence!

The material they found, that had been contaminated over six years, reminded them of nanothermite or regular thermite but probably nanothermite no really it's almost definitely the nano kind. Or it might be just regular paint. Except that it also has rust and aluminum in it. Which may be a result of the contamination or it may just be because those two substances are present in just about every structure in the history of construction.

What's even better though, is that the inconclusiveness of this paper (and it's really stunningly inconclusive) aside...it doesn't answer any of the following issues I've raised in my previous entries:

-How did they got 10 to 100 tons of this highly dangerous substance into three buildings right under the noses of the very people they were going to kill?

-How did they detonate this substance? Was it a timer? Remote control? Telepathy?

-How did they know exactly where the planes were going to hit in order to plant the explosives in a way that would make it seem that the structure of the building gave way right around the point of impact? Because that's what it looked like to me. Also that's what it looked like to the rest of the world.

-Perhaps most importantly...if this material is as highly explosive and reactive as everyone says it is, why didn't it explode as soon as it came in contact with the burning hot flaming jet fuel that exploded all around it? Why didn't the buildings collapse immediately after the planes hit? Did this substance just decide to wait to react to the fire?

-100 other issues I've brought up about this conspiracy.

Now it's not surprising that this paper doesn't deal with any of this...aside from the fact that the writers all live in a parallel universe where plutonium is available at every corner drugstore



and addressing these issues would force them to come back to reality, this is a scientific study that is meant to address one simple question:

IS THERE NANOTHERMITE IN THE DUST/RUBBLE THAT USED TO BE THE WORLD TRADE CENTER?

And the answer...is a resounding "MAYBE? UHHH AT LEAST WE THINK IT COULD BE."

Like I've said previously, I'm not a scientist. I'm not a structural engineer. I may be completely off-base with my analysis of their methods but the one thing I AM good with is common sense. If you want to ignore the fact that this scam would be impossible to pull off in reality (especially in the reality of a world with internet and a 24/7 TV news cycle) without someone finding out that's one thing. But if you're really going to jump just because some Danish physicist and a bunch of sociologists and psychologists told you they MAY have found something that they still have no proof could actually knock down a building and would be entirely unqualified to comment on even if they did...then God bless you but I can't be bothered to show you why you're wasting your time.

I've already spent enough time on this and while it was kind of fun living in the Wonderland for a week or so,



Israel Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut) is coming up and I should have my hands full with the real issues. I'll still respond to comments when they come up as I'm sure fans of this topic will continue to haunt me the same way that Ben Wedeman and Jon Stewart fans continue to pop up on occasion and send me fun little emails. It's interesting by the way what topics continue to generate traffic months and even years after I post them, but that's a whole different topic entirely.

Anyway, to the 9/11 conspiracy people I say it's been real, it's been nice...but it hasn't been real nice.

I want the last week of my life back...

UPDATE: Two major new developments concerning this topic can be found clicking here. Apparently the editor of the journal this paper was published in, has resigned in protest and the methodology for these experiments was botched in several ways.

On controlled demolitions and thermite

Quick follow-up to my previous article.

This is by no means intended to be a comprehensive "debunk" because a) I'm not in that business and b) even if Harrit is right it doesn't change anything but a quick google search turned up the following:

Thermite Welding

Thermite welding (TW) (sometimes called thermit welding) is a process which joins metals by heating them with super heated liquid metal from a chemical reaction between a metal oxide and aluminum or other reducing agent, with or without the application of pressure. Filler metal is obtained from the liquid metal.

Source: weldprocedures.com

And this:

The most common thermite is aluminium-iron(III) oxide.

The aluminium reduces the oxide of another metal, most commonly iron oxide, because aluminium is highly combustible:

Fe2O3 + 2Al -> 2Fe + Al2O3 + Heat

The products are aluminium oxide, free elemental iron, and a large amount of heat. The reactants are commonly powdered and mixed with a binder to keep the material solid and prevent separation.

The reaction is used for thermite welding, often used to join rail tracks. Other metal oxides can be used, such as chromium oxide, to generate elementary metal. Copper thermite, using copper oxide, is used for creating electric joints in a process called cadwelding:

3CuO + 2Al -> 3Cu + Al2O3 + Heat

Source: Wikipedia

This:

Thermite was also used in both German and Allied incendiary bombs during World War II. Incendiary bombs usually consisted of dozens of thin thermite-filled canisters (bomblets) ignited by a magnesium fuse. Incendiary bombs destroyed entire cities due to the raging fires that resulted from their use. Cities that primarily consisted of wooden buildings were especially susceptible. These incendiary bombs were utilized primarily during night time air raids. Bomb sights could not be used at night, creating the need to use munitions that could destroy targets without the need for precision placement.

And this:

Quick explanation of thermite:

A mixture of iron oxide Fe2O3 (rust) and aluminum powder. When it is ignited the aluminum powder reacts with the O3 part of the rust in a highly exothermic reaction, the resulting product is molten iron.

Thermite is commonly used in welding, because the molten iron has the ability to seep into cracks in metal. It cal also be used to melt through things as shown in an episode of Brainiac and the movie The Sixth Day.

I have made thermite a few times, but never in large enough batches to burn through anything significant. Aluminum powder is hard to come by and I never had a good enough reason to use what little powder I had.

Source: intstructables.com

And this video of the process in action:




Some basic conclusions based on 15 minutes of searching...

1. Thermite is commonly used in welding especially in railroad tracks - aside from the likelihood that they probably used thermite (and thermite machines) to cut the steel that became part of the World Trade Center...they almost certainly used it to work on and build the subway and train tracks that are located all over Manhattan. If you watch the video I embedded...I've actually SEEN this process take place and I'm pretty sure I've seen it take place in construction areas on the subway.

2. Thermite particles generally consist of iron oxide or aluminum oxide of some type. Iron oxide is red (like the "chips" Niels Harrit found) and is also commonly known as "rust." Could there be some other explanation for RUST to be found in the wreckage of a building that was partially built out of iron, steel and aluminum???

3. Thermite does not just explode by itself. Unless there was actually a guy running around between all three buildings on 9/11 as there were fires raging all around with the machine you saw in the video...it would necessitate the usage of military-grade thermite which...

4. ...if you read the Wikipedia article is terribly imprecise. There's no "thermite timer" that can set a time for explosion. The way thermite burns is that it has to be heated to a certain point and then it combusts and it's game-time. If there actually WAS military-grade thermite planted throughout the buildings, the jet fuel would have ignited it IMMEDIATELY and the buildings would have collapsed on themselves within minutes if not seconds if not instantly after the planes hit them. As any of us who were alive and awake and watching the Manhattan skyline on that terrible day know - that's just not what happened.

Finally there's this article on controlled demolitions. Please note the fact that the word "thermite" never comes up...please also note on the first page that it took them THREE YEARS to destroy a three-building complex in Newark that was about 1/10 the size of the WTC. Please finally also note how much work goes into preparing the buildings for demolition.

I am not a physicist or scientist nor am I an explosives expert by any stretch of the imagination. But if you spend just 20 minutes of your life reading up on this stuff you will see just how implausible this argument is and how many mundane and simple explanations there are for this thermite nonsense.

Then if you do a little bit of digging on Dr. Harrit you'll find that he's been ranting and raving about 9/11 conspiracy theories for a very long time. You'll also find that he's a CHEMISTRY professor...not a structural engineer. He is most decidedly NOT an expert in controlled demolitions. Also the other scientists (Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen) who collaborated on this study are all either devoted 9/11 "truthers" who have been desperately trying to prove their case for years, or relative unknowns with no other work to speak of.

In some cases these guys have degrees in sociology and psychology as opposed to chemistry or engineering which qualifies them to comment on the effects of the paranoia their work causes...NOT on the work itself.

It will take a while most likely for a scientific debunking of this "theory" - in the meantime the conspiracy people will be hooting and hollering about how they FINALLY have the scientific proof that's eluded them for years. Well hooray for them!

UPDATE: There is now a final update to this topic that specifically deals with the points that the report that sparked all of this brought up. I highly recommend reading it as it really should close the lid on this issue once and for all.